The Fall of the Athenian Empire-(A New History of the Peloponnesian War) Donald Kagan - (1987)

JI4
'J:HE FALL OF THE ATHENIAN EMPIRE
the growth of Lysander's forces made it too dangerous to reduce the
size of the main Athenian fleet further. As it was, the Athenians were
outnumbered ninety to eighty, but that ratio had existed from the time
of the fleet's arrival, and in all that time Lysander had refused to venture
out. The Athenians as yet had not succeeded in recovering any Ionian
cities, so it was too early to expect that any pressure would force
Lysander to fight while Alcibiades was away from the fleet. His main
concern was to avoid having the Athenians instigate a battle while he
was gone, and he gave his surrogate commander strict orders to avoid
doing so." He had good reason to be confident that nothing untoward
would happen in his absence.
The man to whom he left the command was not a general or even
a trierarch but Antiochns, a kybernetes-a helmsman or pilot of Alcibiades'
own ship. 88 The appointment has been criticized from antiquity
to modern times. As far as we know, it was unique in the entire history
of the Athenian navy, and it requires explanation. The obvious choice
would have been a general experienced in naval warfare. Of the generals
who sailed with Alcibiades from Athens, Conon was just such a
man, but he had been left behind to conduct the blockade and siege
of Andros. The other rwo generals with the expedition were Aristocrates
and Adeimantus, but they must have gone on the trOOpships to
Phocaea, for they had been designated specifically as generals for fighting
on the land. 89 Since no general was available, the conventional
choice would have been a trierarch. Although many of them would
have been merely men rich enough to outfit a trireme, without naval
skill or experience, some among the eighty ship-captains at Notium
would surely have been at sea and had fought in battles before. Leading
a single ship into battle under the orders of a fleet-commander, however,
was very different from organizing an entire fleet, planning a
battle, making specific assignments, and deciding on and ordering
particular maneuvers during the fighting. Unless a trierarch had previously
served as general, there is no reason to believe he could (I~
~ 7 Xen. 1.5.II; Diod. IJ-7Lt; Plut. Ale. 35·5· I believe that Xenophon's version of
the instructions is most accurate: "don't attack Lysander's ships": 1-L'iJ E:1rt:rrAELv Ent TCto;
Aucrc:iv&pou vo.Uo,;; Plutarch's version, "don't fight a battle even if the enemy attacks":
J.L1l&' &v E:m'ITAE.wow ol. 'lToAE.f.LtoL &wvauf.Lo.xELv, and Diodorus' "Don't fight a battle
until I am present": f.Li! vauf.LaxEtv Ewo,; &v oo'rrOo; 11'apa:yE.vTtTa.L, are either vague or
imfoossible to carry out.
0
Xen. 1.5.11; Diod. '3-7LI; Plot. Ale. 35·4·
89
Xen. 1.4.21.